The UAW Constitution Article 12, Section 19, grants members the right to inspect verbatim minutes of the IEB meetings.
The UAW considers these meeting minutes to be public record and as such tries to keep some things out of the minutes that can harm the UAW. At the same time, they try to keep a lid on them, to keep [internal? and] external enemies from knowing the inner workings of the UAW. By being able to “inspect”, that means members have to file a written request, wait until the UAW sets up an appointment with you (usually up to a month, but can be longer sometimes), then you can go into Solidarity House or your Regional headquarters and you can sit in a conference room while a security guard watches you and you read the requested minutes. You are not allowed to take photos, make copies, or take out originals. The security guard will be assigned to watch you to make sure you don’t. You can take handwritten notes or type notes on your laptop. For longer passages, I have even dictated into MS Word on my laptop and automatically transcribed the voice into text, I can do about 7 pages per hour with polishing the text once its in.
Inspecting these minutes is a valuable right and privilege for the membership and I strongly discourage anyone, anyone, from abusing this and trying to cheat and take out photos or originals. Have some integrity please. You will be read instructions, here is a copy of the instructions.
This right to inspect minutes was enacted at the 1946 UAW Constitutional Convention. Then Vice-President Walter Reuther wanted members to see what was going on in IEB meetings, so the delegates would know which IEB members were doing the work of the union (or not). This strategy worked, and is one of the reasons Reuther was able consolidate power in the next elections.
The IEB meeting minutes were also instrumental in helping Shawn Fain get elected to President in 2023. On November 2, 2019, the IEB voted to give then-President Gary Jones a paid leave of absence, rather than kicking him out, after it was becoming publicly obvious he was soon to be facing federal criminal charges. Jones was also given the opportunity to vote in this and to vote on his successor. This was outrageous to many members (myself included!) and showed why reform was necessary in our Union and led to the formation of the UAWD. A labor writer inspected the minutes of that meeting and wrote an article in Labor Notes and In These Times in April 2020 that provided a summary of that vote with selected verbatim comments that IEB members made. With Shawn Fain’s margin of victory only 239 votes out of 139,534 votes cast (Curry won 69,010 votes, Fain won 69,487 votes), it seems clear that inspecting the verbatim IEB meeting minutes put Fain over the top as did Walter Reuther.
There have also been calls over the years to make these verbatim minutes publicly available, so members won’t have to make special trips into their Region or Solidarity House to inspect them and take notes.
In 1959, the Constitution was amended to allow the IEB to hold discussions off-record, with no transcripts made, when, in the best interests of the union, there is a 7/8 vote of those present. This is 7/8 threshold is helpful for members interested in reform, because it makes it less likely that the IEB goes off-record to discuss things the membership should know about. For example, on November 13, 2024, Shawn Fain asked to entertain a motion to go off record, and 9 other IEB members present voted to hold a discussion about the Culture Committee off-record, but 2 IEB members, Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and Vice President Rich Boyer, voted against going off record. Because the vote didn’t meet the 7/8 threshold because of the two holdouts, members can now find out what is going on with the Culture Committee, which is a huge component of reform efforts. Otherwise, members would never know what Shawn Fain and the other 9 IEB members wanted hidden from members (and the Monitor?).
The text of the relevant section of the Constitution follows:
“…Section 19. Verbatim minutes shall be taken at all meetings of the International Executive Board (except when the Board, by a seven-eighths (7/8) vote of those present, decides that the best interests of the Union would be served by an informal discussion of the membership of the Board in session as a committee of the whole, in which event the Board shall confine itself to discussion but shall take no formal action, and no minutes shall be taken). Such minutes shall be transcribed immediately and copies thereof shall be distributed to all elected officers of the International Union as soon as completed. Such copies shall be made available to any interested member in good standing for inspection at the offices of the International Secretary-Treasurer and of each International Executive Board Member. In addition, the Secretary-Treasurer shall prepare a summary of official International Executive Board action after each International Executive Board Meeting, which shall be sent to each Local Union.”
Previously, I appealed to the UAW Public Review Board (Case #1866) about several problems with the way the UAW was handling these verbatim minutes, including going off record without previously voting and delays in the preparation of these verbatim minutes. The PRB ruled in that case:
“(1) Within 30 days of this decision, the IEB shall commit to writing its policy regarding motions and roll-call votes under Article 12, §19, provide a copy to the PRB and Appellant, and publish the policy to the membership [this policy is on the IEB’s webpage];
(2) Going forward, the IEB shall indicate in the verbatim minutes the topic(s) addressed during any off-the-record discussion;
(3) Going forward, the International Union shall make meeting summaries and verbatim minutes available in the manner directed under Article 12, §19 no later than two weeks prior to the next IEB meeting.”
The UAW is also supposed to send locals a summary of the IEB meetings. These are usually pretty well sanitized of interesting discussion but do provide a summary of actions made and many of the topics discussed. These are available to local officers and trustees on LUIS, and members are supposed to be able to ask their local Financial Secretary for to access them. Unfortunately, as of yet, the UAW doesn’t really provide a lot of guidance to locals on how Financial Secretaries can fulfill these requests, and if you ask your local Financial Secretary they are likely to have no idea what you are talking about or what they should do. Best of luck. Keep trying. I’d recommend trying to read the summaries of these IEB meeting minutes before asking to read the verbatim minutes, as it will help you to think ahead of critical items to look for in the verbatim minutes. But here is an example of an older IEB meeting summary to give you an idea of what they are like. Also, in LUIS, you’ll find monthly Strike Fund Reports and semi-annual International Trustee Reports that members should also have access to (these links are older examples).
I’ve pasted below a sample letter you might use as a template for requesting to inspect IEB meeting minutes from your Region (or Solidarity House). Address it to your Regional Director or to the Secretary-Treasurer if asking to inspect at Solidarity House:
“Dear Director XXXXX:
I, name, am a UAW Member in good standing of UAW Local XXX. I am requesting to exercise my Constitutional rights under Article 12, Section 19 to inspect the verbatim International Executive Board meeting minutes from January 2025 through June 2025. Please contact me at (phone, email) to set up an appointment when these are ready.
In Solidarity,
Member Name“
There have been enough requests to do this in recent times that your region will know how to handle these. The first time I inspected IEB meeting minutes was in January 2020, to inspect the minutes of the November 2, 2019 meeting as noted above. Director Stuglin was gracious enough to watch over me (and answer questions) rather than assign a security guard to watch me. He appeared to be fascinated with me, because he told me he had been at the Region for 20 years, and this is the first time he has ever heard of someone doing this.
I believe that in the old days, if you asked to do this, you’d be labeled a troublemaker, because if your Regional Director wanted you to know what’s going on they’d tell you (their version of events). No wonder we had all the corruption! But now with all the corruption in recent years and 1M1V there are more members doing this regularly. That is great for the UAW and for members.
When you go in, I recommend you bring a snack and water bottle with you. I usually stay for 3-4 hours at a time, that is about the longest I can sit and read with such intensity. You might consider going with another member too, so that you can talk about things as you read them.
Good luck!